Runic Games announces the final class for Torchlight 2 as "the magic-wielding Embermage. The mysterious Embermage joins the previously announced Engineer, Outlander, and Berserker classes. This marks the culmination of a month long buildup introducing each class to players." They also reveal the action/RPG sequel will occupy the same accessible price point as its forebear, which is $19.99 USD. "Itís always been our goal to provide exceptional value for the price," says Max Schaefer, CEO of Runic Games. "Everyone who wants to play Torchlight II will be able to comfortably afford to do so, and theyíll be able to play with their friend online or via a LAN, or play single player offline, all with no further purchases."

I'm still buying it to play it through, once, just like TL1. This game was designed to have zero replayability factor, totally unlike Titan Quest and Diablo 2. Let's hope TL2 has an element of surprise. However, we do get what we pay for, so to speak.

I also find if eerily amusing how TL2 is looking very much to be like Deathspank. Hmmmmmmm....

Cram wrote on Aug 26, 2011, 15:17:Game is a day one pickup for me, and I am certainly surprised they didn't put a $29.99 price-tag on this one, they could have gotten away with it easily. The game is substantially bigger than the first one.

Question for people:

Will you still be singing Runic's praises when Torchlight 3, the subscription based (or possibly F2P micro-transaction) MMO, comes out?

Over the years here at Bluesnews, I've seen people praise a company one day and then do complete 180's when that company takes one of their franchises down the MMO route. Words like "greed" and "sell-out" take over those threads.

Well, it's a bit different for Runic, as they have said FROM THE VERY BEGINNING that they were planning on making an action MMO. Plus I don't think the gameplay would deviate that much from Torchlight now (at least not toward the grindy traditional MMO sense). Also, their track record thus far gives them more leeway before people start getting their pitchforks.

Game is a day one pickup for me, and I am certainly surprised they didn't put a $29.99 price-tag on this one, they could have gotten away with it easily. The game is substantially bigger than the first one.

Question for people:

Will you still be singing Runic's praises when Torchlight 3, the subscription based (or possibly F2P micro-transaction) MMO, comes out?

Over the years here at Bluesnews, I've seen people praise a company one day and then do complete 180's when that company takes one of their franchises down the MMO route. Words like "greed" and "sell-out" take over those threads.

It's companies like this that make the massive publishers look bad. They are making a fully featured game with the standards of the big AAA guys, adding in things players have asked for since the original, including multiplayer and increased mod capabilities and asking only $20 for the title. They know that at that price, they are likely to sell significantly more copies than if they sold it for $60. People are more apt to buy it quickly and buy several copies so they can play the game with friends.

The big corps should realize by selling games at $60 a pop (often for a 4 hour experience anymore) offering little post-launch support to their games and milking the customer base with crappy DLC that consists of content made during the games development (I.E. stuff they pulled out so they could sell to you later) and harsh DRM, they are only hurting themselves.

On a more personal nnote, with all the news about Diablo 3 and Activision/Blizzards clear greed, me and my friends are all going to get together and lan this sucker and have a blast doing it. Something we did with Diablo 2 and had a blast at. D3 is still on my list, but it's now pretty low on said list.